Just Say Yes, To Drug Treatment

The war on drugs has been an on-going battle for decades in the United States. Politicians and conservatives focus on incarcerating drug dealers and drug users to fight the war, which has cost taxpayers billions of dollars. This solution is temporary because, eventually the addicts get released from jail and go right back into their old habits. The solution to decreasing the number of drug offenders and re-offenders isn't to throw them in jail but, instead, our focus should be on prevention and drug treatment through programs like drug court.

Over the last thirty years the number of inmates in state and federal prisons has increased by 500 percent to about two million prisoners. Of those two million, approximately 500,ooo are drug offenders (NY Times April23, 2008). To accommodate the surge of inmates, the United States has spent over 15 billion dollars on the construction of prisons from 1990 to 1995. Texas had the country's largest growth in prison and inmate population during this period. They have ballooned from 15 and 18,000 inmates to 110 facilities and 150,000 inmates in the last twenty years. The U.S. has 668 inmates per 1000,000 citizens, the second highest incarceration rate in the world. Russia has the highest with 690 inmates per 100,000 people (CQ Researcher). The amount of money we spend on prisons is astronomical. In Washington State, it's projected that three more prisons will be built by 2030. It costs $250 million dollars to build one prison and $45 million dollars a year to operate. In 2008, there were 9,651 drug offenders in our state's prisons. Much of that tax payer money could be more wisely spent on education and drug treatment programs in an effort to reduce and prevent crime.

The theory behind this prison building is if there's room to put the criminals, it will keep them off the streets, and crime will come down. Well, indeed the crime rates have dropped, but, the costs have sky rocketed. May liberals feel that the increase in stricter sentencing has put offenders with minor felonies such as, possession of $250 street value of marijuana, in jail too long with overstrict sentences. The cost of housing these offenders is well beyond the value of the crime, and a burden to taxpayers. Not only do taxpayers have to pay for offenders housing in prison, but, when it takes them out of the home, they're no longer able to work and take care of their families. When the offender's family has lost half or more of their income, they'll likely end up at the DSHS for state assistance to seek help for food and living costs. If lawmakers could see the negative effects incarcerating drug offenders and the toll it puts on taxpayers and families, maybe they would save us all some money and take care of these offenders and provide them treatment for their addictions. Just putting them behind bars doesn't solve the problem, and when they get released they're very likely to end up in jail again and again.

Some states have followed Florida's lead in adopting an innovative system designed to fix the problem, not hide it and hope it goes away. The idea of having a drug court was created in 1989 in Miami, Florida. Here in the state of Washington, there are 14 drug court programs, one of them here in Snohomish County. This phenomenon of focusing on drug addiction, rather than incarceration has been proven very successful. In Snohomish County, the CHART (Choosing Healthy Alternatives-Recovery & Treatment) drug treatment court study shows that less than 3% of their graduates have ever been convicted of a new felony, compared to 33% who entered but, dropped out the first couple of weeks. This and other drug court programs focus on treating the addiction, to prevent the cycle of committing drug crimes and re-offending. "Snohomish County Drug Treatment Court is a court that has been designed and staffed to supervise non-violent felony drug-addicted defendants. A judge closely monitors defendants who are referred to a comprehensive program of drug treatment and rehabilitation services"(Snohomish County Online Government Information & Services 2008). Participants are required to frequent and random drug testing along with meetings and group sessions over a 12-18 month period. Failure to comply will result in sanctions and possible jail time, community service, and the possibility of termination from the program. A graduate from the CHART Drug court stated," It helped me, if I hadn't been in this program, I know I would've continued my drug use once I served my sentence and got back home." A recent study by the Rand Corporation stated," treatment programs like Drug Court are ten times more effective in reducing crime on a dollar for dollar basis than traditional criminal justice methods."

Comparing the costs of Drug Courts and the current prison systems is dramatically different. According to the DOC's field supervision report(June 30, 2008), out of 28,752 Washington State prisoners, 9,651 are drug offenders. This number doesn't include those crimes that were driven by the corruption of drugs, i.e., robberies to obtain money to buy drugs, pharmacy robberies, and violence due to drug use. The average cost of housing an offender per day in Fiscal year 2008 was $97.68. When multiplied that comes out to an estimated $35,600 per inmate. Drug Court Treatment programs can save taxpayers about $2 billion dollars a year. Along with tax payer savings we avoid future construction of prisons and crime rates are reduced.

Most conservatives and politicians are satisfied with the traditional method of putting the criminal behind bars to solve the problems with drugs and drug related crimes. Although it does keep criminals off the streets for a while, eventually their sentences are served and they're back out in the community to return to their previous life styles. When people aren't treated for their addictions they're more like to fall back into their old ways. And the traditional way of incarcerating these people with bad habits doesn't serve us well as a society. Drug Court treatment programs fight crime at its source by taking care of the offender's addictions head on and, that's the smartest way to fight one of the many battles against the war on drugs.